Nuwara Eliya, the model for the fictional town of Nuala, “is a little piece of England but interpreted with Sri Lankan flair”.

She sets the action in the 1930s, when the island was still the British colony of Ceylon, “because colonialism raised issues that provide an extra layer of interest”.

During that first visit to Sri Lanka she found a perfect location for Trouble in Nuala—the nearby Horton Plains “where you can follow Inspector de Silva’s footsteps through the cloud forest to the precipice at World’s End” (pictured above).